Is Akismet Safe to Have on My WordPress Site?

Akismet is the spam filter that comes pre-installed on most WordPress sites. It is maintained by Automattic, the same company that builds WordPress.com. It is one of the oldest and most widely used plugins in the ecosystem.

Akismet is a reputable product. It also sends your visitors’ comment data to external servers, and it needs updates like any other plugin. Here is what that means for a small business.

What does Akismet actually do?

Akismet collects information about every comment submitted on your site. It sends that information, including the comment text, the commenter’s name and email address, and their IP address, to Automattic’s servers.

Automattic’s systems analyze that data against patterns from across the web and return a verdict: spam or not spam. This works well. Akismet catches a lot of spam.

This is not a privacy hole or a secret. It is how the product is designed. Automattic is clear about what data Akismet sends. The question is whether that data-sharing arrangement is appropriate for your site and your visitors.

Is the external data-sharing a risk?

For most small business blogs and contact pages, sending comment data to Automattic is a reasonable tradeoff for effective spam filtering. Automattic is a large, security-conscious company with a privacy policy and GDPR compliance documentation.

The consideration changes if your site handles sensitive topics or if your visitors have heightened privacy expectations. In that case, it is worth reading Akismet’s privacy policy and deciding whether the tradeoff works for your context.

The external connection also means that if Akismet’s servers are unavailable, your comment functionality may behave differently. This is an availability consideration, not a security one.

What is Akismet’s security track record?

Akismet has had security issues discovered and patched over its long history. Its maintenance by Automattic means the bar is higher than the average plugin: large team, professional process, fast response times.

In 2025, researchers logged 11,334 new WordPress security holes across the ecosystem. Akismet accounts for a small slice of that number, and its track record is better than most. But it still requires updates. An outdated Akismet installation carries the same risk as any outdated plugin.

The pattern that applies to all plugins

Akismet is well-maintained. It sends data externally by design. It needs updates. It has had vulnerabilities patched over time.

This description applies, with minor variations, to every plugin in the WordPress ecosystem. The question is not whether Akismet specifically is trustworthy. The question is how many plugins you are running, how carefully you monitor them, and whether the cumulative maintenance burden is working for you.

In 2025, 91 percent of new WordPress vulnerabilities came from plugins. Akismet is one of the safer ones. The other 91 percent is distributed across everything else on your site.

What you can do today

1. Confirm Akismet is current. Log into your dashboard and check the plugins page.
2. Enable automatic updates for Akismet. Automattic releases patches quickly, and auto-update means you benefit immediately.
3. Review Akismet’s privacy policy if you have visitors with privacy sensitivities.
4. Check whether you have comments enabled. If you turned off comments and never get comment spam, Akismet may not be earning its place.
5. Audit the rest of your plugins. Akismet is low-risk, but it sits in a stack with other plugins that may not be.

Why this keeps happening

Every plugin, including well-maintained ones like Akismet, is software with a vulnerability timeline. New issues are found, patches are released, and the cycle continues. This is not Akismet’s failing. It is the nature of maintained software.

The cumulative effect of running 20 to 30 plugins, even good ones, is a meaningful attack surface. Roughly 13,000 WordPress sites are hacked every day. Many of those sites had reasonable, maintained plugins installed.

Basalt moves small business websites off WordPress to a platform with nothing to hack and nothing to update. The move is free. If you want to understand how many plugins your site is actually running, start here.

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